


Flashes like Distant Stars

by DaughterOfDungeonBat



Series: Shifted Sands [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Paranoia, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fill, Psychological Trauma, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, Qui-Gon Jinn is a Good Guy, Qui-Gon friendly, Shmi Skywalker Lives, Shmi Skywalker Needs A Hug, Slavery, Trauma, and there's nothing you can do about it, author doesn't know how hyperspace works but neither does anyone else, enslavement, soft, the face of non-toxic masculinity is a he/xe enby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29951475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfDungeonBat/pseuds/DaughterOfDungeonBat
Summary: Shmi Skywalker's husband returns from his mission to rescue his former student, only to tell her that Anakin did NOT stay on Naboo like she had told him, and had instead joined the quest to save Obi-Wan Kenobi, dragged poor Padmé along with him, and lost his arm in a fight with an evil former Jedi.To get to Anakin, Shmi has to experience a hyperspace jump for the first time since she was a child.That last journey has left scars that Shmi has forgotten still bleed.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Shmi Skywalker
Series: Shifted Sands [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920016
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Flashes like Distant Stars

**Author's Note:**

> SUP!  
> This is the 'paranoia' prompt from my Bad Things Happen Bingo card, and takes place in my Shifted Sands universe. I recommend reading the series summary, but basically the Jedi still refused to train Anakin after Naboo, so a still-alive Qui-Gon quit the Jedi Order, took Ani back to Tatooine to home school him, and accidentally becomes his space step-dad.  
> This particular bit takes place right at the end of this universe's version of Attack of the Clones. Brief summary- Anakin went to Naboo to protect Padmé to keep the Jedi apolitical, while Obi-Wan still has his Kamino adventure and ends up rotating in front of Dooku like a 7/11 hotdog. Like in canon, Obi-Wan is only able to get a message so far, and Qui-Gon gets it on Tatooine and runs off to save his boy. Shmi calls Anakin and gives strict instructions to stay on Naboo with Padmé, which they promptly ignore.  
> Okay? Okay!  
> Very little of this is relevant to this one-shot, which is about Shmi having Trauma!

Shmi was trembling almost visibly from the moment that the ship jumped into hyperspace and the distant stars turned into beams of light. As soon as the ship settled, she was out of her seat and making quick progress to the cargo hold before Qui-Gon could even say her name. Even if he had, Shmi would not have heard him.  
  
_“All those streaks going by are the stars, Shmi.”  
  
The years had turned the face of her father into an indistinct smudge, but the lurch of the ship and the terrible sound of tearing metal as the pirates boarded remained as clear as the day it had happened._  
  
Two large crates, both secured. One leaving a large enough gap between it and the wall that someone could easily-  
  
_Her mother found a crevice and shoved; her hands flat on Shmi’s back. The last contact that they would ever share.  
  
Shmi, small enough to fit but not small enough to disappear between cracks in the floor, pulled her knees to her chest and tried not to listen to the sounds that she would only later find out was blaster fire.  
_   
There were footsteps approaching her hiding spot, Shmi knew it had been the beating of her heart, the air in her lungs, that had given her away.  
  
_“Got a live one!” Said the impossibly tall man blocking the light into Shmi’s hiding place._  
  
There was a tall man knelt in front of her hiding place.  
  
_“Don’t make this hard.” He said, one hand reaching for Shmi like a claw._  
  
He said something almost too low to hear and stretched a hand towards her.  
  
_Shmi wailed._  
  
Shmi kicked. Her foot connected with flesh and bone, hard.  
  
_The man laughed._  
  
The man cried out and pulled his hand back.  
  
The sudden break in the sequence of events snapped something in Shmi’s mind. She looked, really looked, at the man crouched down and blocking her only escape.  
  
Deep-set blue eyes that held not an ounce of malice or cruelty, only worry. He sparked no fear in Shmi, just the rolling calm of a sudden rainstorm. She knew the person that feeling was attached to.  
  
“Qui-Gon.” Shmi whimpered. Her husband, her husband, had just been trying to check on her and she had kicked him-  
  
“Shmi love.” Qui-Gon said with a relieved sigh, with no indication at all that he minded being struck. He just looked at Shmi with that soft smile that was reserved just for her, as though she had painted the stars across the sky. “What do you need?”  
  
Shmi’s lip trembled, though she was determined not to cry.  
  
“Stay, please, just-“ Shmi took another shaking breath, “Not there, please. Somewhere else?” Qui-Gon just smiled gently, nodded, and moved from Shmi’s limited sight. There was a sound of boots on metal on the crate Shmi had wedged herself next to.  
  
“Is this alright? I don’t want to be looking down on you.” Qui-Gon said, and before Shmi could ask what he meant, she followed the sound of his voice to the edge of the crate, where long, silvering hair was spilling almost within her reach.  
  
A small, cathartic laugh bubbled from Shmi’s chest at the image they made. A Jedi Master laying on his back on a shipping crate so that a mad woman wouldn’t forget that he was there.  
  
Whether from sympathy or just how used he was to her brand of madness, Qui-Gon did not acknowledge the laugh.  
  
“We can talk, or we can just sit. We’ve got a little under an hour until I have to get the ship into the next hyperspace lane, and then we have about six hours from there to Coruscant.”  
  
Over the next few minutes, Shmi slowly released the coiled tension locking her knees to her chest and grinding her teeth together. She was shivering, and as her heart settled, she realized it was not simply because of her paranoia. Space had not seemed so cold, in Shmi’s memories.  
  
A few moments after Shmi’s teeth began chattering audibly, she heard Qui-Gon shift, and his cloak floated onto her shoulders.  
  
“I wish I could offer you something warmer, or clean, but I didn’t think to grab anything before I left Geonosis.” Qui-Gon said, even as Shmi was burrowing herself as deeply in the cloth as possible. It was dusty, and had certainly been blaster scorched and maybe bloodied, but it still smelled of sun and wind and home, and put another layer between her skin and the endless cold of hyperspace.  
  
The same words flashed on repeat in Shmi’s mind, seeming to crawl against her throat in desperation to be spoken aloud. It would be so easy, to just say the few words that would tell Qui-Gon that she wasn’t mad. But she knew it wouldn’t be easy; that her sweet husband would coax the entire story out of her like a spool of thread, and Shmi couldn’t tangle him in her web.  
  
Instead of letting the words free, Shmi stayed silent. Silence was safe. Silence was easy to disappear into. Keep your head down and shoulders folded in, so you do not catch anyone’s eye. Do not speak, so no one hears the unique lilt of your voice.  
  
The last time Shmi Skywalker (not Skywalker, not yet, though whatever she had once been called had been weathered away by the sands of Tatooine) had been in hyperspace-  
  
Just before the second jump, the words finally fell into the air.  
  
“The last time I was in hyperspace, I was the cargo.”

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me about my AU! It makes me the Happy!


End file.
